Freezing, reboots, and battery life issues creep up in HTC and Nokia handsets

Windows Phone 8 enjoyed a big launch at the end of October. Sporting a slick user interface, a growing app catalog, and (finally) premium hardware, it seemed that the Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) mobile operating system was finally growing into a legitimate competitor to Apple, Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG).

Reportedly Nokia's flagship phone, the colorful Lumia 920 has been experiencing unexpected freezes and reboots. The phone also appears to be suffering from bad battery life, a problem that has plagued past Lumia devices due to firmware glitches.

Nokia Lumia 920

Reportedly disabling tap-to-send NFC helps improve the battery life; it's possible that Nokia's firmware is not smart enough to turn of the NFC modem when no devices is present, instead continuously pinging for compatible signals.

HTC Corp.'s (TPE:2498) 8X has not reportedly experienced that battery life woes, but it has been rebooting. That indicates that the rebooting/freezing problems may trace to deeper stability issues in Windows Phone.

That battery life issue (accompanied by the phone getting unusually warm) is being reported quite frequently in the WPcentral forums. My 920 has experienced it a few times, generally after using the Nokia Drive beta app, even when I make sure to close it out "properly" so it's not running in the background.

I recently did a "battery-pull reset" and haven't had the issue again yet, and my battery seems to be much better. If it comes back, I'll have to try a full factory reset, which has been reported to do wonders for those 920s experiencing poor battery life.

The issue is probably over-stated, but it certainly is happening. I've experienced it, though my girlfriend's 920 hasn't and her battery lasts forever and a day. So, like I said: it's there, but not all-pervasive.